No Bias?

Have you heard the latest about the Governor of IL, Blagojevich? You can read the story here. What is so interesting is that no where in that story is there any mention that he is a Democrat. If you will notice, usually, when Democrats get in trouble or accused of things, you have to read down to the 2nd, 3rd or even 5th paragraph to find what party they belong to but when it is a Republican, the story usually leads off “Joe Smith (R), was accused of this or that.”

Just thought I would point that out. I have already called for a moratorium on biased reporting but might as well again.

Perhaps that story did not mention he was a Democrat because most Chicago Tribune readers live in Illinois and already know that Blagojevich is a Democrat.

New York Times:

“CHICAGO — Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois was arrested by federal authorities on Tuesday morning on corruption charges, including an allegation that he conspired to effectively sell President-elect Barack Obama’s seat in the United States Senate to the highest bidder. Mr. Blagojevich, a Democrat, called his sole authority to name Mr. Obama’s successor “golden,” and he sought to parlay it into a job as an ambassador or secretary of health and human services, or a high-paying position at a nonprofit or an organization connected to labor unions, prosecutors said in a 76-page affidavit by the United States Attorney’s office in the Northern District of Illinois.”

Washington Post:

“FBI agents this morning arrested Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich (D) and his chief of staff on conspiracy and bribery charges, including allegations that the governor was seeking to benefit financially from his appointment of a successor to the U.S. Senate seat that was vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. ”

CNN:

“Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich appeared in court Tuesday afternoon to hear federal corruption charges against him. He was released on $4,500 bail.
Rod Blagojevich is serving his second term as governor of Illinois. The Democratic governor, who appeared in court in a blue jogging suit, also had to forfeit his passport.”

NPR:

“Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his top aide were arrested Tuesday on corruption charges following a federal investigation of the 51-year-old Democrat’s administration.”

Yet, you said: “If you will notice, usually, when Democrats get in trouble or accused of things, you have to read down to the 2nd, 3rd or even 5th paragraph to find what party they belong to but when it is a Republican, the story usually leads off “Joe Smith (R), was accused of this or that.”

Funny…because all of those articles from the “liberal media” mentioned his party affiliation right off the bat.

Once again though, you said: “If you will notice, usually, when Democrats get in trouble or accused of things, you have to read down to the 2nd, 3rd or even 5th paragraph to find what party they belong to…”

But, in one of the more prominent cases of a Democrat getting in trouble, I just quoted an article from four of our nations leading – and quite progressive – news sources. And they all mentioned that Blagojevich was a Democrat right off the bat.

Just saying…

On another note – couldn’t a governor with a normal name have gotten in trouble? I am sick of having to luck up how to spell Blagomoron every time I reference him…

Policulture, I saw where Axelrod lied. That is funny stuff. Axelrod now says he misspoke, that Obama never talked to the Governor about a replacement. If he misspoke, why didn’t he correct it right away?

Thing is, I am sure Obama is deep into this but it will never come out.

It always makes one wonder what Elrod would say about this. My guess is that he never even posted this on his site. When the GOP did something, he would just about trip over himself to get the post up but a Liberal who does something he just skips and if someone brings it up, he blocks their post. Yes Sir! What a great Political Science Professor to have!

I’m not sure why anyone would want to challenge him for expressing, thoroughly, his disgust for Blagojevich’s misdeeds. I did notice though that several times he forgot to avoid mentioning that Blagojevich is a Democrat. I guess he didn’t receive the memo mandating a moratorium on identifying the political affiliation of Democratic crooks.

Jim, you also guessed wrong when you assumed that he’s now only surrounded by like-minded cronies that don’t challenge him on his blog. Admittedly, it is mostly as you assumed, but not completely.

I also see no significant difference, in terms of openness, in Elrod taking his blog private to avoid the hassle of people complaining to his employer about what he posts and other people who use pseudonyms like “Politics and Culture” and “Roland” to maintain their privacy.

Actually, I took Dr. Elrod for classes when I attended Harding. He always opened his classes with a few minutes talking about current events. One thing I did notice is that he was open to talking about anything but if you brought up Democrat faults or misdeeds, he would quickly comment on them then move on to class whereas if he or a student brought up a GOP failing he would go on and on and on very sarcasticly about it.

I think the only reason he took his blog private was to grandstand. He loves that sort of thing, when attention is thrown his way.

Nothing stopped Elrod from speaking freely for the past twenty years….why does it now? Anyway, my biggest issue with him was always how he began blocking my posts on his blog. That sure doesn’t sound too “open” to me.

Why does it now? Because he’s been getting so much heat and hassle from his employer when people complain to them about the content of his personal blog. It’s sad when a political science professor has to avoid discussing his personal opinions about current politics with his students because doing so immediately precipitates parents complaining to the university (which is the current situation…I don’t know what has changed from the past “20 years” but I suspect that in the past he flew more under the radar). I was disappointed to see his blog go private (since, as long as fruitful discussion can be maintained rather than simply bickering and troll-like-behavior, it is desirable to have interplay between opposing views rather than an echo chamber) but I understand that he didn’t think it was worth it to keep it public just like I understand that you might prefer to express yourself from behind a pseudonym.

You guys obviously have a history. It seems to me the mature thing to do would be to move on and stop sniping at him from afar, but whatever.

It would be annoying to have your posts blocked. I’m sure he felt he had a good reason…not surprising that you disagree, since you disagree with him on so much.

I am a member of Politics and Culture and I commented on Mark Elrod’s blog a few times. I am not a good debater and sometimes my arguments were not stated as well as they could have been. It was disheartening in those situations to be publicly laughed at and ridiculed by Mark Elrod and his buddies (many of whom call themselves Christians).

BTW: I think a professor should be given a lot of leeway in expressing his opinions. But when Mark Elrod came out in favor of gay marriage, I think parents were right to complain to the administration. I certainly would not want my grandkids to be taught by such a man.

You’ve provided a fine illustration of the problem. The issue of whether the government chooses to recognize gay marriages is primarily a political science issue, not a religious one (we live in a democratic republic, not a theocracy). The question of whether a Christian approves of the gay lifestyle is a religious issue. There are good reasons why a Christian might be in favor of legal recognition of gay marriage regardless of whether or not she believes a homosexual lifestyle can be pleasing to God. A political science professor should be able to express his views about political issues on his personal blog or in other public places (without, of course, presuming to speak for the university) without having his job threatened, in my opinion.

Personally, I don’t think the government should discriminate against its citizens based on their sexual orientation. I’m not concerned about whether you call in marriage, civil unions, or whatever. Whatever you call it, it should provide for equality. That is not to say that I believe a homosexual lifestyle to be pleasing to God…nor do I consider adulterous, or gluttonous, or materialistic ones, for example, to be pleasing to God…while believing that the government should not be discriminating against those of us the practice those lifestyles either.

By the time they reach college age, I hope your grandkids are not mature enough to handle discussing political science issues with a political science professor who happens to have different views than their grandparents.

“What should Christians think of this matter? Well, in the first place not only is marriage defined in the Bible as an act between a man and a woman, it is said that God initiated such an act in the first place. God brought the man and the woman together (read Gen. 1-2). The result of that marriage was a ‘one flesh union’, something which, if we understand it and exegete the phrase properly, is not possible for two men or two women to have with each other. Male and female were created in such a way that they, and they alone, can produce a one flesh union. This is not to say that other sorts of sexual activity could not create bonds of intimacy between two persons. This of course is the nature of intimate sharing in sex. The point is that these other sorts of unions are not what the Bible means by a ‘one flesh union’ (see e.g. Ephes. 5.21ff.).

The result of a proper marriage is not merely that the two become one, but that one of them, the male, becomes a husband and the other the female becomes a wife. It is no more possible for a female to become a husband than it is possible to have a female uncle or a male aunt.”

I realized I ignored your first paragraph. I don’t dispute that an insensitive jackass or two frequents Elrod’s blog. I’d say the same about some people I’ve encountered here and pretty much every other site on the web. In fact, I don’t think I’d have to look too hard to find a few examples of Roland laughing at and ridiculed something I’ve said.

Jim,

That’s why I say I don’t care about what you call it as long as it is equal. If “marriage” is something special because the Bible says so then keep the government out of the marriage game and tie the large number of benefits that are currently associated with marriage to something else that is equally available to all (like civil unions).

I don’t him as well as you do. However, I suspect it’s a case of normal imperfections seeming less noteworthy in someone you personally like but exaggerated in someone you don’t.

Any comment on the fact that you predicted Elrod wouldn’t even mention Blagojevich when it turned it that he had already denounced him vigorously? Given that you never miss a chance to bad-mouth him, it would only seem fair to acknowledge when you did so wrongly.

As I said before Jon, I assume one of the reasons Elrod kicked me from his site is because he got tired of me bringing up how inconsistent he was in not detailing out when Liberals screwed up. Only when it was the GOP. Thus, the clock analogy.

But this is such a weak and arbitrary criticism in my opinion. How easy would it be to demonstrate your inconsistency, for example, in celebrating “gaffes” from Obama and Biden while ignoring the same from McCain and Palin? Shall we take a quick survey of the “Quote of the Day” posts? Nah. No one (I hope) is under the illusion that you or me or your brother or Elrod are commentators unblemished by any hint of bias or hypocrisy. So what. As long as we’re not pretending otherwise this is hardly a major character flaw. Hopefully we can all try to see past our own biases to give the other guy the benefit of the doubt and listen to what he has to say.

As I said before, how about a moratorium on sniping at Elrod from afar. Sniping isn’t civil.

Challenge accepted…I couldn’t resist doing an analysis of your blog. In the next comment I’ll post the details with loads of links (if it doesn’t show up, look for it in the spam queue where it may end up due to the length or links).

I didn’t re-read every post on your blog, but I did skim a bunch of them found by searching for key words like Obama, McCain, Biden, Palin, Republicans, Democrats, liberals, Elrod, etc. These numbers count content in blog posts (not the comments sections).

So, that’s 45+15+30=90 posts criticizing liberals and 10 criticizing Republicans. That’s an order of magnitude difference (Easter egg reference to another obscure Moratorium Site discussion thread). There was about 1.5 posts praising Elrod and 1 or 2 praising Obama and several praising McCain or Bush. I don’t think I found any examining Palin’s gaffes but several criticizing Biden or H. Clinton, for example. A significant fraction of the anti-Republican posts are actually more like single lines like “the Republican RINOS are just as bad” tacked on to posts criticizing liberals.

Please let me know if I missed any examples in the next post, but I’d say this is quite conclusive evidence that (like Elrod) you occasionally criticize your side of the aisle but you’re hardly a different breed from him (or me) in terms of being unbiased and even-handed.

Also, Elrod could make the same type of justification that you made here (link):

“I try to be as open minded as I can…there are just so many things to make fun of Liberals on that I tend to blog about that more.”

As you’ve pointed out, the big difference is that he went private and you’re semi-public (public content, private identity). Big deal. Like I said, I wished he would have kept it public but understand why he might choose not to do so.

Actually, the bigger difference is that I allow opposing view points, such as yourself. He does not. He blocks them.

Thanks for the research. One thing I will say is that I cannot include EVERYTHING. Every single news story or gaffe or what have you. I don’t have the time for one thing. I mainly try to include things that you don’t hear about in the main stream media as much due to their huge bias.

You said: “Actually, the bigger difference is that I allow opposing view points, such as yourself. He does not. He blocks them.”

Actually, that’s not true either (at least as a blanket statement). Even now with the private blog there are still people (admittedly a minority, of course) with a consistently opposing view. I don’t know why you were unwelcome when the blog was public, but the data shows that it was not because ALL opposing views were unwelcome.

About the content of your blog, I don’t have a problem with it per se (though clearly I often have an opposing view). I’m only giving you a hard time about it due to the “pot vs. kettle” issue…because you criticize Elrod for mostly focusing on the misdeeds of Republicans rather than Democrats when you do the same but from the opposing side. 9 times as much criticism for liberals than Republicans (no gaffes from Palin, almost nothing from Bush who is a veritable cornucopia of gaffes and betrayals of conservative principles) is NOT simply a matter of being unable to include EVERYTHING. It’s bias. Sure, it can be rationalized as filling the gap left by the mainstream media, but it’s still bias. That’s fine. No big deal. Just don’t rip the rest of us for our bias while excusing your own.

See, Jon, you don’t know that. How many of those opposing points from people are getting thru and how many are not? Why not let ALL of them thru? I know only about 2 out of 5 of mine got thru. He could censor mine and then, finally, just blocked me completely.

Also, Jon, it’s not just the misdeeds of the GOP he only focuses on. Many times he skips over those of the Democrats (I don’t think he ever talked about William Jefferson (Democrat, LA) and his scandal. At times when a Liberal does have one, he would mention it, in passing but not really much about it. Just a little whisper.

As I said, I focus on Liberal gaffes because you don’t hear about them as much in the mainstream. Why focus on a Palin or Bush gaffe when it is wall to wall on CNN, ABC, NBC, MSNBC and others? There is not point. The mainstream does not cover the liberal scandals and gaffes to the degree that they do the GOP.

BTW, what Palin gaffes are you referring to? Seems you are hung up on her for some reason.

I’m not saying ALL (or even many) of the opposing views are present on Elrod’s blog (either now or in the past). I’m saying that SOME are both now and then (and I do KNOW that because I have observed it with my own eyes). Therefore, your absolute statement that Elrod does not allow opposing views is not true. He apparently blocked some of yours but it’s not true that he blocked all opposing comments or that he NEVER allowed comments contrary to his view (as you incorrectly claimed here: link; even if we focus only on you, how does 2 out of 5 = none)

(what follows is said with tongue in cheek, but maybe only half-way) I realize that your belief that Elrod is a man of highly-questionable integrity and morals is a fundamental tenet of your worldview…so I’m only a little surprised that your response continues be effectively “Yeah, but he is worse!” rather than acknowledging the obvious conclusion based on the data that your blog is (within rounding error) as biased as Elrod’s and, therefore, your jabs at him for being biased are kind of hypocritical. That hypocrisy is what I’m taking issue with, not the general content of your blog.

Why block certain comments? It’s not unusual for bloggers to moderate out comments they believe to be abusive or for whatever reason not contributing usefully to the blog. Maybe that’s what happened (fairly or not) with some of yours. Maybe they weren’t all intentionally blocked by Elrod. Maybe some got lost in the moderation/spam queue. I know that has happened to a comment or two on my blog (and Elrod has many, many more comments to moderate on his blog than I do) and to some of my comments here.

Since Palin or Bush gaffes are wall to wall on the networks, you don’t need me to rehash Palin gaffes here (but here are a couple links if you need to jog your memory: link and link).

Anyway, let the Elrod- and liberal-bashing resume…this is my last comment in this thread.

It’s my last as well…I will just point out again how my posts to his blog were NEVER abusive. I kept to topic. He just hates being wrong and being shown he is wrong. He would rather not have to face it. Trust me…I know this from personal experience of having him for classes. He just brought that attitude over to the internet.